Reports from G.E. Nordell, author & philosopher & revolutionary, living a quiet life at his mesa-top home in New Mexico. Topics to be covered include economics, politics, cinema, local culture (rural & urban), and the adventures of a sometimes-grumpy hermit deep in The Land of Enchantment . . .

Thursday, May 22, 2014

News Factoids for April & May 2014

“The world is not ready for the impacts of climate change, including more extreme weather and the likelihood that populated parts of the planet could be rendered uninhabitable, says the planet's leading body of climate scientists in a major new [United Nations} report.”
-- National Geographic, 31 March 2014

Very scary (and tedious) slide shows are being spammed all over about President Obama's House Bill 2847, which supposedly goes into effect on July First. The scare is that it will crash the economy, the dollar will go kaflooey, all hell will be visited on the reader of the spam. But facts make the fear-mongers look really silly. Just a five-second look on Wikipedia tells the whole tale: The name of the enacted bill is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which closes loopholes enjoyed by the privileged One Percent who have money stashed overseas. If you have no funds stashed overseas, then this act of Congress will have no effect on your life, except maybe having to hear the Oligarchy's propaganda machine whine and whine about actually paying for government benefits that they expect for free (or do not like, such as regulation of food quality, of drugs, of pollution, etc.).

When diesel locomotives were first introduced in Canada, the railroads had to test several horn models before one was found that discouraged moose rather than attracting them.

ANOTHER COMMODITY FAILURE
Coffee beans in Central America have been damaged by the roya fungus (also called 'rust'); expect higher prices.